


Like I Breathe You

by ashamedbliss



Series: Once and Future Queen [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Always-a-girl!Merlin, Asphyxiation, Breathplay, Comeplay, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbending, Girl!Merlin, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Possessive Arthur, Punishment, Shameless Smut, Smut, Spanking, Unsafe Sex, Wax Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 21:59:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2363573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashamedbliss/pseuds/ashamedbliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin has been Arthur's maidservant for two months when she makes one too many mistakes. He has to ensure that she is correctly punished.</p><p>Or, Merlin is gagging for it and Arthur is too, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like I Breathe You

**Author's Note:**

> My first complete Merlin fic, however short it is, means I'm relatively proud of this one! It's also my first foray into anything mildly kinky and/or genderbent so let me know if you like it, or even better, let me know if you don't! Thanks to everyone who's pushed me along with this (well, mainly Anita, seeing as this is her late birthday present), hopefully I'll get into my Merlin stride properly soon so I can give you more stuff. Title from Lana Del Rey's Fucked My Way Up To The Top.

Merlin tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, one of the curls having strayed from the band she normally used to pull it back with. Her back aches as she stretches along the stone floor, the little brush in her hand the only sound in the room as it scrubs against the slabs. The candles are burning low, and the King still hasn’t returned to his chambers from an emergency meeting after supper.

She isn’t worried, as she wipes her sore hands against her blue woollen dress, the fabric already dirty from the grimy floor. She stands, the job finally finished after two hours of constant scrubbing, and she smiles at her work. The King’s nightclothes are already laid on the bed, and water for the bath is already on the fire.

(And if Arthur doesn’t know that Merlin magically ensures the water is the perfect temperature every time, well, what he doesn’t know won’t harm him.)

Biting her lip, Merlin looks around the room again. Everything is clean and tidy, arranged neatly and in its correct place, as always. In the past two months of being his maidservant, Merlin likes to think she’s been doing a good job. She’d even finished his armour after the training session this morning, and she _hates_ doing armour.

She thinks of Arthur’s tense face as he’d been called away from his supper, the worry in his eyes that only she was privy to, and she knows why she’s tried harder to not be insolent today.

The door opens with a bang and Merlin starts, placing a dainty hand on her chest. “ _Gods_ ,” she groans as Arthur storms in, cloak fluttering behind him and crown looking as if it always belonged there. “You scared the bloody living daylights out of me,” she mutters.

“One day, Merlin, you’ll actually talk like the girl you are, and Gods forbid you’ll actually use my title,” Arthur says tersely in reply, not looking at his maidservant as he searches for something on the table. “Where are my parchments?”

Merlin smiles brightly. “I tidied them, _sire_ ,” she grins, said grin faltering as Arthur’s expression remains dark. “You... said I should tidy your chambers whilst you were away?”

“Where _are_ they?” Arthur asks, although it isn’t really a question. Merlin tries not to blush as the tone goes straight to her groin, at the most inappropriate of times.

“I... might’ve disposed of them,” she says, swallowing. “In the fire.”

Arthur growls, a sort of low rumbling from his chest, before stalking forward quickly. Merlin backs up against the wall, hitting her head as Arthur’s hand comes to her throat. She looks up at Arthur with terrified eyes, and her line of sight shifts as Arthur closes the hand, lifting her onto her tiptoes.

This is the first time Arthur has laid a hand on her in any way, and the skin under her neck tingles at his touch.

“They were important peace treaties, _Mer_ lin, you can’t just dispose of things like that!” he shouts, and Merlin struggles to take a breath, wheezing against the pressure on her windpipe. “I _know_ you can read. You will have to be punished for this.”

Merlin’s eyes have fluttered shut, and at the mention of punishment she can’t help the tiny moan that escapes her. Her eyes shoot open, to find Arthur’s unreadable expression inches from her own face.

“Did you just...?” Arthur asks, but the heat is gone from his voice. The pressure lessens. Merlin shuts her eyes again, a blush creeping onto her already reddened face. Arthur releases her neck, and she dips her head slightly in embarrassment.

“No wonder you get into trouble all the time,” Arthur says, with a mix of amusement and wonder in his voice. “You get _off_ on it.”

“I don’t... I try my best to please you, sire,” Merlin says quickly, opening her eyes but unable to look any higher than Arthur’s chest. “I love to please you, I hate disappointing you, this wasn’t intentional, not in the slightest, but... I...”

“Say it,” Arthur commands, and Merlin bites her lip.

“Sometimes, I wish I were brave enough to defy you truly. Not just forgetting your title, or your breakfast, but something... something dreadful, to warrant a terrible punishment at your hand.”

She hears Arthur’s sharp intake of breath, and she has to look up to his face. Arthur’s crown is ever so slightly askew on his head, his eyes bright with something she doesn’t recognise and his jaw set with determination. She tips her chin up in a way she’s seen Morgana, a true lady of the court, do on many occasions, and Arthur exhales slowly.

“They were important peace treaties,” Arthur repeats, seemingly at a loss for words.

“I deserve to be punished, then,” Merlin says, her voice a little lower than usual, a little rougher. She keeps eye contact as she says it, but she can’t miss the slight twitch in Arthur’s clenched jaw.

Arthur steps forward, curls a hand around the back of Merlin’s neck. She can’t help but shiver, lips parting in anticipation, but Arthur simply pauses before pulling Merlin away from the wall, guiding her to the table, the one where the treaties had been messily spread until this afternoon. Arthur pushes her down onto it with such a force that she barely catches herself before her nose were to smash against it. “Arthur, I--”

“Shut up,” Arthur says, and Merlin whimpers, braced against the table with her arse up in the air. “You call me _sire_ if you’re spoken to, otherwise you are not to speak. You may make as much noise as you wish, though. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sire,” Merlin says quietly, hating how her voice shakes. She doesn’t quite know herself if it’s from fear or from anticipation.

“Do you know of the colour system, Merlin?” Arthur asks, and _Gods_ how she loves the way he pronounces her name.

“No, sire.”

“If you are enjoying something, it’s green. If you want me to slow down or you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable, it’s yellow. If you want me to stop immediately, it’s red. Understood?”

Merlin nods into the wood of the table. “Yes, sire.”

“Good. Contrary to belief, I am still in need of a maidservant and I don’t want to break you beyond repair,” Arthur says, and Merlin bites her lip. She hears Arthur move behind her, feels her dress being brought up her legs, the material of it being pooled over her back. She braces her forearms on the table, adjusts her head so her neck doesn’t begin to ache, tries to focus on anything except the fact that Arthur is now staring at her bare arse. “You’re already wet, Merlin.”

Merlin blushes. “I--”

A sharp blow is dealt to her right arse cheek, and her fingertips rush to the opposite edge of the table for purchase. “I said, no talking,” Arthur grinds out from behind her, and the pain from the slap recedes only slightly before another two are dealt in short succession. The skin there feels as if it’s on fire, and as Arthur’s breath skitters across it, the sensation makes her mewl.

“This is a punishment,” Arthur says lowly, in an octave that makes Merlin’s toes curl in her boots. “Yet, you’re as wet as a whore and arching up for another each time.”

Arthur shifts slightly, the next blow landing on her left arse cheek, and then across both of them at once. The King rubs at the sensitised skin, and Merlin hates how she pushes back into his touch. Two fingers dip into the crease of her arse, barely brushing at her slick opening. “ _Gods_ , Merlin,” he mutters in a tone that makes Merlin wonder if he’s as surprised as she is by this turn of events.

“Sire, please,” she begs against the rules, hating how wrecked she sounds already, even though she’s barely touched.

“Which colour?” Arthur asks, his voice moving away from her. Merlin does not turn to look, afraid of disobeying.

“Green,” she says, swallowing. “Sire.”

Arthur’s large hands are on her arse, spreading her open for his perusal. On the other side of the table, her face turns a brighter red, unknown to the King kneeling between her legs. “You’re _dripping_ ,” he says, and Merlin makes a keening noise involuntarily. “I wonder...”

Merlin shrieks when she feels Arthur’s tongue against her very centre. “ _Gods_ , sire,” she moans, unashamed to pant now because she _needs_ this. Of course, she’s had a tumble or five with various stable boys, and she’s no blushing virgin, but she’s never been slowly pulled apart like this, never had to beg to get what she wants.

Arthur’s blunt fingernails rake across the hypersensitive skin from the blows, and Merlin squeaks in an embarrassing pitch at the pain, before she realises that it’s not so bad after all when Arthur immediately soothes it. “Green,” she assures him quietly, and he does it again, just a bit harder.

His tongue continues exploring, beginning to probe deeper, and Merlin tries her hardest not to push back onto Arthur’s face. She does, though, and receives a sharp pinch on the side of her thigh, which makes her whole leg jerk. Arthur pulls away from her, sighing heavily. “If you can’t keep still of your own volition, _Mer_ lin, I will have to enforce it.”

Arthur walks around the table into her line of sight. He unsheathes his dagger, and for a moment Merlin’s eyes go wide with fright and her mouth begins to form the word “yellow”, until Arthur laughs. “Oh, please, Merlin. Have some faith in your King,” he says, and it makes Merlin clench right where she wants her King, but he turns his back on her in favour of his bed. He goes to one of the bed posts and unknots the rope pulling back the curtains of it, cutting it from where it’s fixed to the wood. He turns back to Merlin with a grin on his face, tugging the length of rope tight between his fists.

Merlin can’t help the moan that falls from her lips this time, but she finds that she doesn’t have it in her to care. Arthur’s gaze lowers slightly, and Merlin realises that when she raised her head to look at the rope, she pressed her chest into the table. She smirks, pressing her breasts further into the wood, knowing that her low-cut bodice is doing the rest of the work.

Arthur’s stare turns to steel, and he kneels to grip Merlin’s chin between his thumb and index finger. “Are you disobeying me, Merlin?”

Merlin attempts to shake her head in his iron grip. “N-No, sire.”

“Stand up,” Arthur says, sitting down in his chair at the end of the table, putting his boots up onto it. Merlin obeys; the wool of the dress sets her skin aflame as it falls back down to cover her behind. “Strip.”

Merlin hates the way her fingers shake as she unlaces the bodice of her dress. She keeps her eyes trained on the soles of Arthur’s boots as she does so, until the fabric gives and she can push the dress from her shoulders, pull her hands through the sleeves. It falls to her waist, and she’s not quite sure if she imagines Arthur’s gasp or if she actually hears it, before she’s pushing it from her hips for it to pool at her feet.

Automatically, one arm goes to cover her breasts, one hand to the thatch of hair between her legs, but Arthur knows her too well, only after two months of acquaintance and an hour of _this_ because he says “no,” loud and clear, and Merlin daren’t disobey again, too eager to please, too eager for release. She sucks her stomach in slightly and pushes her shoulders back as she stands just in her ankle-high boots.

“Unlace your boots,” Arthur says, and as Merlin goes to crouch he adds, “don’t bend your knees.”

Merlin looks him in the eye for a long second before she slowly straightens her legs again, bending from the waist instead to rid herself of her boots. She’s flexible so the stretch doesn’t bother her, but she knows Arthur’s handprints are bright red on her arse, perfectly on display for him now. She stands up straight again, waiting for the next command.

“Your hair,” Arthur gestures towards her with a hand, sounding amused, before pointing to his own head and swirling his finger around. “Take it down.”

Merlin happily obliges with this request, as having it up all day pulls at her scalp. The messy black curls tumble down around her shoulders, brushing her collarbones and shoulder blades. Arthur nods his approval. Merlin shifts slightly; she can feel how wet she’s becoming under Arthur’s heavy gaze, and she knows it’s not going unnoticed.

“Undress me,” Arthur says as he shifts in his chair, pulling his feet off the table and back to the ground, legs spread apart. Merlin makes to move towards him, before the low, guttural command stops her dead in her tracks.

“Crawl.”

Merlin gets to her knees where her dress is discarded on the (thankfully clean) floor, and she crawls across the room to Arthur, making sure she doesn’t break eye contact, not even for a second. She knows, deep down, that this is all a game, that she is the one with all the power. All she has to do is say red, and the game would stop, and Arthur would be the loser.

Yet, she knows that this is more than a game.

She sits on her heels between his legs, her own legs slightly open and breasts pushed forward just so. She smiles as Arthur’s fingers twitch against the armrests of his seat. “Well?” he asks, tone sounding almost bored, and Merlin’s heart sinks for just a fraction of a second, worried she wasn’t playing the game well enough.

Merlin purposefully brushes her hands against Arthur’s neck as she sits up a little to unclasp his cloak, letting it fall against the back of the chair. She pulls off his belt, trying not to shiver at the thought of how the leather in her hands could mark her, before she sets it aside. His mail requires a little more concentration, and she doesn’t realise her tongue is just sticking out of the corner of her mouth until Arthur comments on it. She glances at him, pouting once more as she finally rids him of the mail, leaving him in just his tunic, trousers and boots.

Gingerly, her hands go to Arthur’s left boot, easing his foot out of it. She rubs her nose against the cloth of his trousers where it bends at his knee as she does so, and as she removes the other boot, she dares to press her whole face against his warm leg. Sliding her palms up his thighs, she’s close enough now to hear his breath hitch as she reaches the laces of his breeches, and her face lights up with a smile as she pulls the fabric back to reveal his cock, thick and hard and weeping with precome.

Arthur’s cock is a thing of beauty, something she had decided on her very first day as his maidservant when she was helping to bathe him. However, she’s never seen it like this, never so close, never so aroused. She licks her lips at the sight of it, gaze flicking up to his own parted lips in permission. Her fingers inch towards it, itching to--

“No,” he says shakily, and then “no,” with more command to it. “You’re being punished,” he says, as more of a reminder to himself than to Merlin. She pouts, only slightly, before he lifts his hips to allow her to pull his trousers down his legs, relishing his warm calves against her hands as she lifts his feet out of them and pushes them aside.

Her fingertips graze up his flanks as she gathers the tunic up to his armpits, and when he can’t see, face obscured by the fabric passing over his head, she grins as Arthur’s cock twitches with the touch.

Finally, finally, her King is naked before her, and she sits back on her heels once more, biting her lip with a lowered gaze.

“You forgot my crown.”

“I’m sorry, sire,” Merlin says, glancing up through her eyelashes to see Arthur taking it off his own head. He pauses for a moment, regarding it with an odd look, before slowly lowering it onto hers.

 _Heavy_ is the first thing Merlin thinks, from the solid gold but also from the power, from the responsibility that comes with it. She looks up at Arthur coyly, his blond hair ruffled from where the crown has bore down on him all day, and his jaw has dropped just so.

“One day,” he says, and his voice is wrecked. “One day, I’ll have you like this, and you’ll wear my crown, and I’ll feed you my cock until you choke on it.”

Merlin gasps at that, shifting ever so slightly, rolling her hips. She watches Arthur’s cock twitch once more. “But not today. You haven’t earned the right,” Arthur says, removing the crown and setting it aside.

“On the bed.”

Merlin crawls to the edge of the bed, sure to rock her hips from side to side as she does so, heaving herself up onto the clean sheets. “On your back, hands above your head.”

Merlin stretches herself out on the bed akin to a cat, biting her lip as Arthur crawls onto the bed alongside her, the rope from earlier coiled in one fist. The rope chafes as it’s pulled around her wrists, and she has to shuffle upwards as Arthur secures it to the headboard. Merlin gives it a tug to find it doesn’t move at all, and in fact her arms begin to ache almost pleasantly after a few seconds. It takes the sting out of her sore arse, now pressed against the itchy embroidered covers.

Arthur backs off the bed, standing at the foot of it and looking at Merlin. She blushes under his gaze; he looks utterly _regal_ , and all she wants in that moment is to please him for the rest of his life.

A slow smile crawls across the King’s face as his eyes fall on whatever it is he’s looking for. He strides across the room, leaving Merlin’s line of sight and returning with one of the candles from the table. Merlin gasps audibly, eyes wide with a hint of fear, yet shifts her legs against each other after seeing the promise in Arthur’s eyes.

“Will you be a good girl for me, Merlin?” he asks in a honey-sweet voice that makes Merlin want to groan. “I want to paint your skin.”

“Yes,” she manages to whisper, voice betraying just how much she needs Arthur, needs him to do whatever he wants to her body, even if she is a little scared of the flame itself.

“Now, you _must_ keep still,” he instructs slowly, as he crawls onto the bed, candle in his right hand. He holds it over her torso, a yard or so above her skin, before tipping the candle and its holder ever so slightly to let a drip of wax fall from it.

Merlin watches it fall, yet she still hisses at it hits her skin. It’s hot, probably too hot, and if she really wanted she could cool it with magic, or use a safe word, but she doesn’t. Not when she then looks into Arthur’s eyes, full of amusement and wonder and a little bit of awe, if she dare think that highly of herself. “I could paint a dragon onto you, Merlin. Mark you as my own.”

“Arthur--” she sighs, eyes fluttering shut. A moment later, she gasps loudly as the next blob of wax lands dangerously close to her nipple.

“You seem to have forgotten my title, Merlin.”

“I’m sorry, sire,” she mutters, although she isn’t really that sorry at all, because she wants the wax on her again, and again, and again.

“Or, if I had more patience, and if you were able to keep still for more than two minutes, I could make a mould of your tits, or of your cunt, for those few times you aren’t nearby to sate my needs.”

Merlin’s breath shudders at this, and she tips her head back, biting her lip so hard she fears it may bleed. “Sire,” she says, begging as much as she dare.

“Or perhaps my initials, instead of the dragon,” Arthur continues musing to himself, shifting on the bed to drop wax just below Merlin’s belly button, before the dark hair starts. She rolls her hips upwards, but his other hand stills her movements. “What if it wasn’t even wax, Merlin? What if I branded you with a collar, or even with a scar? You would bleed for me so prettily, wouldn’t you, as I carved my name into you...” Arthur drawls, and Merlin’s close to tears now, desperate for Arthur to touch her. “Right here, perhaps,” he says as he drops wax onto her inner thigh, the sensitive skin registering the heat much more acutely as she whines.

“Or what if I were to brand you with this flame?” he asks, and the candle suddenly looms dangerously close to her skin. She doesn’t want to disappoint Arthur, but memories of a magic accident back in Ealdor when she was young flood her mind, and she finds herself speaking of her own accord.

“Yellow.”

Her voice is shaking and she closes her eyes with shame, the unshed tears of her arousal now threatening to fall down her cheeks. “Merlin,” Arthur says softly, and his touch is on her cheek. She opens her eyes to find the candle being moved to the bedside table, and Arthur’s hand now stroking through her curling hair, fanned across the bed. “You’re doing brilliantly,” he says under his breath as if it’s a secret, and she can’t help but beam at the compliment, as strung out and on edge as she is.

“Sire,” she murmurs, and Arthur understands the implication in her tone.

“You want me to fuck you, Merlin? You’re being punished. Was your crime really that terrible?” Arthur asks, back into his role.

For a moment, Merlin’s traitorous mind thinks about the crime of being a sorceress, and how _that_ is punishable by death. Any punishment involving being fucked by Arthur Pendragon really didn’t seem that bad, in comparison.

Instead of putting this into words, however, she simply moans, moving her leg to run her calf up and down Arthur’s. He bats her away, then runs his hand up the inside of her leg until he reaches the apex of her thighs

“You’re still so wet for me. You enjoy being punished, don’t you?”

Merlin nods her head vigorously, trying to grind down onto Arthur’s fingers. He snatches them away and she whimpers.

“You get something better in a moment,” Arthur says, before he touches his cock, gentle at first before properly taking it in hand and pumping it. Merlin stares, transfixed, drinking in the movement in his bicep and the way his jaw hangs slightly slack.

“ _Sire_ ,” Merlin begs, uncaring of the need in her voice. Her fingers twitch in their bindings high above her head, and she opens her legs wider in invitation.

“ _Gods_ , Merlin, you are impossible,” Arthur says more to himself than his maidservant, shaking his head before he shifts to sit between Merlin’s thighs. She can feel his cockhead against her lips there, and she desperately tries to push down onto him, even if it means nearly ripping her shoulders out of their sockets to do so. “So eager for my cock, you’d put tavern sluts to shame,” Arthur says, before he finally presses forward.

Merlin commits to memory the way Arthur’s breath hitches, eyes fluttering shut in pleasure and an expression on his face that she had never seen before.

The King drives onwards, Merlin filling the otherwise silent chamber with gasping noises, crossing her ankles in the small of Arthur’s back when he eventually bottoms out. He stays still for a moment or so, long enough for Merlin to feel full to the brim, to feel as if she’s about to burst, until he drags back slowly and thrusts in once more.

Merlin’s moan is guttural. She makes eye contact with Arthur, begging with her eyes before tipping her neck back and exposing her throat. ‘Please’ sits on her lips yet she adds no voice to it, doesn’t need to, because Arthur’s hand is there on her throat, with more pressure than the time against the wall, hours or possibly lifetimes ago now, she can’t decide. Arthur’s thrusts grow deeper and more languid, trying to stave off his own orgasm but only resulting in making Merlin whine under his hand.

“ _Merlin_ , you are so...” Arthur starts, fingertips warm against Merlin’s neck.

Arthur shifts onto his knees, one hand still at Merlin’s throat but the other now on her hip, thumb able to rub at her clit, swollen and desperately neglected. She bucks up into him as much as she can, trying to suck down a breath to meet the rush of pleasure that the touch gives, but Arthur’s grip is too tight. She tips her head back even further as Arthur’s ministrations and deep thrusts continue, and combined with the black spots forming behind her eyes, her orgasm takes her by surprise. She sighs as she comes, clenching around Arthur’s cock as she soaks the sheets below them, Arthur’s balls slapping her arse as he continues to thrust a steady rhythm.

He pulls out abruptly, making Merlin cry out as he sits back on his heels, now fisting his wet cock with quick, eager strokes. As Merlin’s chest heaves, breasts moving slightly as she desperately tries to catch her breath, Arthur rises onto his knees, shifting closer as his strokes grow more erratic, hips thrusting into his hand. Merlin sees the expression on his face, the way he’s staring at her abdomen, and her toes curl in anticipation.

“Paint me, sire,” she says lowly, the words tumbling unbidden from her lips. “Come.”

Arthur groans, tipping his head back as his cock shoots two ropes of come across Merlin, a blob of it even managing to catch her on the chin. The King falls forward onto one hand as he milks his orgasm, the last of it dripping onto the tops of Merlin’s thighs.

“You spoke,” Arthur says a few minutes later, once he’s rolled onto his back next to Merlin and they both stare at the canopy, chests heaving. “I told you not to speak.”

“I’m sorry, sire,” Merlin says, before her lips twitch up into a smile. “Maybe I should be punished for that. I mean, I obviously haven’t learnt my lesson.”

Arthur turns to her, laughing a disbelieving laugh before reaching out with two fingers, spooning the come from her chin onto her full mouth. “Yes,” he says firmly as Merlin’s tongue dares to flicker against his fingertips as she licks her lips. “Your insolence and disobedience need corrective measures. Perhaps I’ll gag you next time, so that mouth of yours can’t run away again,” he says as he presses his fingers against her lips, soft to his touch.

“Next time?” Merlin asks, with mirth in her eyes. Arthur drags his fingers down her neck, hand closing around a breast before his fingers pinch at a nipple. His maidservant squeaks.

“Shut up, Merlin.”


End file.
